


A Boar Bristle Brush

by dancingontheedge



Series: Three Mothers and Two Sisters [2]
Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Beauty Rituals, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Political Philosophy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 11:17:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12034773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancingontheedge/pseuds/dancingontheedge
Summary: Belinda and Emma's relationship through the years takes place mostly around the vanity in Emma's bedroom.





	A Boar Bristle Brush

Twenty five years ago, Missy Jane married Master James and moved to Virginia, taking Belinda with her.  Twenty three years ago, Missy Jane’s doctor handed Belinda a bright red, sticky, screaming baby to wash, and Belinda did as she was told.  Three years after that, Belinda was handed another baby, wrinkly like a ninety year old and red as a cherry with a fuzz of black hair on her head.  Another three years passed and there was a third child, smaller and more pink than red, that was handed to Belinda. 

Emma had been a quiet baby, who never demanded attention the way her siblings did.  As she grew older, she stayed a quiet, thoughtful girl.  She was accustomed to all the finer things in life, and never thought to question them.  She was also a careful child, never breaking things or causing unthinking harm.  Not like Jimmy, who relished taking risks with the neighborhood boys, and not like Alice, who cried all the time.  By the time that Emma was ready to start school, Belinda was willing to say that she was her favorite.  Emma never complained about Belinda’s rules or hit her when she did not want to go to bed.  Emma never laughed at anyone.  And since Emma was such a well-mannered girl-child, she received little attention from Missy Jane and Master James, who funneled what parenting they did toward disciplining their unruly eldest and youngest children.

Belinda always had an intimate window into Emma’s thoughts.  When Emma had first started taking books from her father’s library, she would often read them out loud while Belinda brushed her hair out in the evening.   Occasionally, she would stop and ask Belinda what she thought a passage that Emma had just read out meant.  Initially, Belinda was wary.  She weighed the earnest face of the thoughtful child in front of her alongside the way Emma was always kind and never talked about Belinda with anyone.  Warily, she answered the first query.  Then the second.  Soon it was a nightly ritual, Emma and Belinda analyzing political philosophy together, the way that Jeremy from the factory, who knew his letters, had taught her to analyze scripture that she heard.

When Jimmy was eleven, he fell out of a tree and broke his leg in three places.  It never healed quite right, and the rowdy boy became an ill-tempered youth.  By that time, Emma had started reading things well beyond her age level.  When, at the age of ten, Emma was caught borrowing John Locke from her father’s library, Belinda sensed a shift in the house.  Emma had always been the good child, but now she had her father’s favor, and more of it than Jimmy had had even before he became so sullen.

John Locke had been a particularly difficult philosopher for Belinda to remain circumspect about.  For all she had decided to trust the pretty girl-child, Belinda still was not willing to say ought about slavery.  Not outright.  Let Emma come to her conclusions herself, so no fateful “Belinda said,” would slip past her childish lips if her conclusions turned out to be subversive.  But it was difficult to keep mum when Locke’s treatises began, “Slavery is so vile and miserable an estate of man, and so directly opposite to the generous temper and courage of our nation, that it is hardly to be conceived that an Englishman, much less a gentleman, should plead for it.”  Emma had read that sentence aloud from the gift her father gave her for her eleventh birthday, while Belinda brushed her hair.  Belinda had needed to set aside the brush for a moment, to stop her hands from trembling.  Emma had read the entire thing out loud over the course of two weeks, and during that time had not managed to pry a single unique opinion from Belinda.

After that, Emma would read the table of contents before starting, and would not read any chapter discussing slavery out loud.

As Emma grew and grew, it became clear to Belinda that she was leading a charmed life, with everything a girl could want and nothing bad ever touching her.  She had a cast iron stomach, and would often read on bumpy carriage rides when she needed to go someplace.  The year she was fourteen, she read everything Martin Luther had ever published, and John Calvin besides.  She had her nose in Calvin’s letters almost the entire time they were in South Carolina visiting her grandparents, and on the way back to Virginia she was so focused on rereading Rousseau that she did not see a single field slave.  As Alice and Jimmy absorbed the casual cruelty of the slave system through their surroundings, Emma missed it all, and it never once occurred to her to hit or pinch Belinda.  And Belinda thanked God every day that the little angel had managed, somehow, to escape the reality of this cruel world.  Of course, if Emma had seen the cruelty, it would have been more difficult to dismiss Locke in favor of Reverend Burwell’s happier fictions that aligned so neatly with what Emma did see.

When Emma went to finishing school, Belinda missed her like fire.  Her fifteen year old mistress would never again ask her what she thought of God, or spend a winter afternoon sitting in a corner of the warm kitchen with a book as thick as her arm.  She was tackling some of the Greeks that year.  And Belinda was left with Alice, who pinched when she was displeased and was never content to sit quietly while Belinda got on with the cooking.

By the time Emma was through with finishing school, her awkward days were over.  She was graceful again, and her skin was all but clear.  She could no longer be found with a book in her hand everywhere she went, but Belinda saw the fat leather tomes with gilded pages that she hid underneath her pillow, and they still discussed philosophy while brushing out her hair though now Emma asked questions and shared her own thoughts, rather than reading aloud.  She knew how to tease and flirt, and her time away had shown her how to get along with other girls.  Namely, not to attempt to discuss Plato, Aristotle, and Burke with everyone, lest they think her uppity.  But Emma had friends, finally, and Belinda knew that would be good for her.  She nodded approvingly when she passed by the small parlor to get the laundry and heard girlish giggles, with statuesque Emma the center of everything. 

Emma still had her father’s ear, of course, and spent all of 1860 and 1861 discussing political philosophy with him.  It was no surprise to Belinda that Emma was ardently in favor of Southern independence should Lincoln be elected, not with Frank dripping poisoned propaganda in the child’s ear, making it seem noble and good and never once mentioning that it was all about slavery.  No surprise at all, with their nightly talks.

It did not come as much of a shock to Belinda when Emma demanded to become a nurse.  She had spent the last year watching Emma become more and more restless, as her arguments with her father grew more pointed and her jibes at Jimmy’s lack of service hit their mark with alarming frequency.  Emma was living in the present now, and it was only a matter of time before she took the political philosophers she had been reading since she was a child to heart and began to act.  Belinda could see the impetus building and building as Emma chaffed at the changes to her well-ordered life.

Something Missy Jane and Master James never really understood about Emma was how stubborn she was, because they had never hit against anything she would really dig her heels in about.  But Belinda had run into several topics on which Emma remained unmoved during their nightly discussions.  And so, when Belinda was leading Emma away from Mansion House in her blood-spattered white gown, she recognized the look in her eye and knew that Emma would not be dissuaded.

Two months later, she saw that look again, Emma’s eyes finding hers in the mirror and holding them as Belinda picked up the brush.

“Belinda,” Emma began measuredly, “will you teach me to put up my hair?”

“Well I suppose I could Miz Emma.”

“Just something simple, I’d like to not bother you before I go to the hospital in the morning.”

“It’s not a bother,” Belinda was quick to protest.  She was being truthful, but she also was not, in a way that she often was with Missy Jane.  Belinda loved Emma like she was her own child, and Emma was by far less trouble than her sister, who would change how she wanted her hair done some three times as Belinda brushed it out.  At the same time, Emma had been favoring simpler and simpler styles lately, to the point where it almost seemed silly to Belinda that she could not do it herself.  And as Emma awoke earlier and earlier preparing to go to the hospital, being up the stairs to help pulled her away from her kitchen routine.

And so, every night for the next two weeks, Belinda helped Emma learn to put up her own hair.  She taught her a simple style, which Emma would practice for three days or until she could get it the first time.  And then, another simple style.  Just because Miz Emma would be doing her own hair now was no reason for her to only wear a chignon. 

Halfway through July, Emma appeared in the kitchen first thing in the morning with her hair all done up as Belinda finished stirring the morning biscuits.  She hung back by the door nervously as Belinda started to knead the dough, not announcing her presence.  When Belinda turned to get a knife to cut the dough, she saw her lingering in the doorway.

“Well hello Miz Emma.  Let me see your hair.”

Emma turned to show off the tangle of braids at the nape of her neck with a shy, proud, little smile.

“Very good.  Now be sure to check your pins every few hours, you not an expert yet, Miz Emma.”

“I will Belinda,” said Emma, turning back around.

That afternoon, Master James returned.

After that, Belinda did not help Emma with her hair anymore, but Emma started coming down to the kitchen in the mornings, and in the evenings they would discuss philosophy and recipes as she ate her dinner at the kitchen table.  Belinda was the first in the house to know when Emma began to question the Confederacy, but Emma never told her about her realizations about slavery, because there were some things that Belinda just couldn’t talk about with her pretty white mistress.  When Emma packed her carpetbag, Locke’s “Two Treatises of Government” were in it.

**Author's Note:**

> I've always thought that Emma was a student of philosophy-- how else would she know exactly which philosopher to pull from as she argued her way into the hospital? I don't think Locke was banned in the pre-Confederate South, but I think he's definitely someone Emma would be interested in reading, as his writing helped shape the American Constitution. And I don't understand how anyone could read his treatises and come away still supporting slavery. Find them here: http://www.yorku.ca/comninel/courses/3025pdf/Locke.pdf

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [What worries you, masters you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12190860) by [middlemarch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch)




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